The gunman responsible for Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas wires $100,000 to a bank account in the Philippines, his live-in girlfriend’s home country, a week before carrying out the attack, it has been revealed.
Stephen Paddock, 64, sent the money to an account before setting up a sniper’s nest on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on Sunday.
His live-in girlfriend Marilou Danley, 62, who was in Tokyo when it occurred, is now on her way back to the US to face questions from the FBI.
Law enforcement officials who confirmed the wire transfer to NBC did not reveal who the bank account belonged to.
On Tuesday, as authorities worked to piece together the chain of events which prompted Paddock’s killing spree, photographs emerged of the man leading a happy, family life.
Stephen Paddock is pictured (top right) in a 2013 photograph taken during a meal with his girlfriend Marilou Danley’s family in the Philippines
In images obtained by DailyMail.com, he is seen smiling and laughing with Danley’s family during a 2013 trip to Manila.
Others show the couple partying with friends in Las Vegas in 2014 in a nightclub. Danley worked for hotels and casinos in Nevada.
It is not clear how she met Paddock but it is likely through their mutual connection to gambling. The 64-year-old was addicted to video poker, spending $10,000 a day on video games before his death.
In the family photographs, he is seen enjoying a traditional ‘Kamayan dinner’, which is eaten with your hands and comes from the filipino word for ‘hand’ – ‘kamay’.
Eating fish, vegetables and rice with his bare fingers, Paddock looks completely at ease with his companions, which also includes Danley’s sister Liza Werner, who’d travelled for the reunion from her home in Brisbane, Australia. Werner posted the pictures on Facebook with the words ‘Kamayan Blues.’
In the images the man appears happy and relaxed. What drove him to commit Sunday’s massacre – the worst in US history – has not been established
Earlier today, Danley’s nephew Jordan Knights revealed that he’d gone to visit his auntie and Paddock in Las Vegas only a few weeks before the tragedy and had no inkling that Paddock was building up an arsenal of weapons, which would go onto kill at least 59 people and injure 527 others who were attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday night.
Knights was travelling in the US with his mother, Amelia Manango, Danley’s sister. She posted a picture of the MGM Grand entrance onto her Facebook on August 29.
‘It seemed like he just looked after my aunty and that was it,’he told 9 News after the shooting on Monday.
When asked if there was any signs that he was into guns or mentally unstable, he responded: He didn’t seem like he was the type of guy to do that. I didn’t even know he knew about guns.’
Paddock was pictured talking animatedly with his girlfriend’s relatives at the 2013 feast
In another image believed to have been taken in Las Vegas in 2014, Paddock (circled) is seen with a large group in a nightclub. Danley is pictured second right
He then told The Courier-Mail that the pair went to family lunches at a casino, adding: ‘He was a normal person pretty much. It’s just weird, crazy (what has happened). It’s hectic sh**.’
Knights went onto say there was no suggestion Paddock was a religious man.
He said Paddock was friendly towards him, adding: ‘I wouldn’t have a clue (if he had been radicalised by Islam).
Paddock shot himself before a SWAT team could get into him inside his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on Sunday night.
It took them 72 minutes from when the first 911 call was placed to break into the room.
By the time they got in, Paddock, whose brother said had made ‘millions’ through real estate deals, had taken his own life.
Paddock (left in an undated photo) killed himself before a SWAT team could get to him on Sunday night. Marilou Danley, his girlfriend, was in Tokyo at the time. She will be questioned upon her return to the US on Wednesday
59 people were slaughtered and 527 were injured in the massacre in Las Vegas on Sunday night
Concert goers were listening to country music performances when the shots began. They were then forced to run for their lives. Some heroic music fans saved others in the process and carried anyone who couldn’t walk to safety
Images of the Mandalay Bay Resort show two windows blown out on the 32nd floor of the building (above) that Paddock smashed out so he could shoot crowds from two locations
Photographs of the hotel room which have since emerged reveal some of the weapons inside.
Danley lived with Paddock in Mesquite, Nevada. In the weeks before Sunday’s attack, he sent $100,000 to a Filipino bank account
He was holed up in the suite with 23 guns including some modified semi-automatic rifles which had been placed on tripods and aimed at the crowds.
At his Mesquite home, police found another 19 guns and explosives.
Danley was initially feared to have been a person as interest.
It was initially feared that she may have been with her partner when the shooting occurred but police have since determined that she was in Tokyo.
She will be questioned upon her return to the United States.
It is not known how long the pair have been a couple. Danley moved to the US from Australia more than 20 years ago following the death of her husband.
She worked in the gambling industry. Paddock was an avid gambler who blew $10,000 a day on video poker.
No motive has yet been established for the attack.
Police are likely to probe his gambling debt and addiction as they try to identify what drove him to commit the atrocity.
But so far they are at a loss.
‘We cannot even rule out mental illness or some form of brain damage, although there´s no evidence of that, either,’ one official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The man’s brother said his girlfriend was the ‘closest one’ to him and she would be the person most likely to shed light on his mindset.
‘Mary Lou is absolutely the closest person to Steve. We are going to let her contact us if and when she decides she wants to,’ Eric Paddock said on Tuesday.
On Monday, Paddock’s brother Eric spoke outside his Orlando home to say he had no inclination as to what drove him to commit the killings
Jordan Knights, Danley’s Australian nephew, met gunman Stephen Paddock a few months ago and found him ‘unremarkable’